The Quetta Police College attack was simultaneously claimed by the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi’s (LeJ) Al-Alami (global) faction. While LeJ Al-Alami did not claim direct involvement in the Shah Noorani shrine attack, it highlighted that the group is working in tandem with ISIS in the immediate aftermath of the bombing.

LeJ worked in tandem with the likes of Taliban and al-Qaeda for many of these attacks. Meanwhile, the Al-Alami faction announced its place in the South Asian jihadist network after collaborating with al-Qaeda to target a Shia pilgrimage in Kabul in 2011.

ISIS also targeted the Shias (Ismaili) when the jihadist group orchestrated its first attack in Pakistan, killing 43 members of the community. “Thanks to God 43 apostates were killed and close to 30 others were wounded in an attack by the soldiers of Islamic State (ISIS) on a bus carrying people of the Shia Ismaili sect … in Karachi,” the group’s statement read in the aftermath of the attack.

Pakistani Taliban splinter group Jundullah had been the ISIS foot soldiers in the Karachi bus massacre, just like Jamaat-ul-Ahrar had been in the Quetta hospital bombing in August. Taliban factions organically gravitated towards ISIS, with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) regrouping following the initiation of military operation Zarb-e-Azb and ISIS looking to exaggerate the expansion of its “caliphate.”

LeJ originated in 1996 as an offshoot of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), an anti-Shia militant organization. After being formally banned in 2002, SSP reincarnated as the Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), which has contested elections and formed coalitions with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in Punjab. In LeJ, ISIS has an operational alliance with a group that has had an understanding with the country’s ruling party and has enjoyed the support of the Pakistan Army.

One way to answer that question is through the center’s apparent focus on the eastern CPEC route, which passes through Punjab and Sindh and only enters Balochistan near the coastline, approaching Gwadar through a virtually horizontal highway. But it’s hard to imagine Beijing accepting terror activity around the outlet for its $46.2 billion investment, even if Islamabad might.

There are, hence, two potential offshoots of this weekend’s events in Balochistan. Either Pakistan reconsiders state patronage of jihadist groups, or the ISIS-LeJ alliance takes the fight to Punjab.